With neuroscience, we can confirm what our ancestors took for granted—that letting babies get distressed is a practice that can damage children and their relational capacities in many ways for the long term. We know now that leaving babies to cry is a good way to make a less intelligent, less healthy but more anxious, uncooperative and alienated person who can pass the same or worse traits on to the next generation.

Letting a hungry breastfed baby cry it out is indefensible cruelty.

That’s nothing but nonsense, of course, on a variety of levels. It’s nonsense because crying it out does not cause brain damage and it’s nonsense because it is based on the myth of our “noble savage” ancestors who had nothing better to do with their time than endlessly soothe their multiple babies.

But let’s take CIO opponents at their word for the moment. If they honestly believe that CIO harms babies, why do they think it is okay for hungry breastfed babies to cry it out?

Hunger is probably the most elemental of infant drives and, as anyone who has seen an infant scream from hunger would probably agree, is experienced by the baby as suffering. For most mothers, myself included, the sound of their own infant crying is piercing in its intensity and distress. I remember being surprised by this when my first child was born. I had spent my entire professional life surrounded by crying babies and it had never bothered me, yet I found my son’s crying unbearable and always rushed to determine what was wrong and fix it in any way possible. I cannot imagine letting any of my infants cry in out in hunger for any length of time without feeding them.

So why do lactivists think it okay to let babies cry it out for hours at a time because of desperate, all consuming hunger?

Why do they advise women whose babies aren’t getting enough milk in the first few days to CIO arguing that assuaging an infant’s hunger now, when he is suffering, will undermine breastfeeding? Why do they view supplementation in the first view days as an evil so great that it is preferable to force babies to CIO and thereby destroy their brain cells?

Why do lactivists think it is okay to ignore an infant who is not gaining weight because of a maternal milk supply that does not match that infants needs? Why do they denigrate women who find their baby soothed and content after a bottle of formula, and chastise them that they should have let the baby CIO?

Why do lactivists consider maternal mental health/postpartum depression to be a trivial reason for letting babies CIO, but consider that establishing or preserving a breastfeeding relationship is a perfectly acceptable reason for CIO?

Feel free to correct me, but I’m not aware of a single lactivist or attachment parenting blogger who sees anything wrong with letting a hungry breastfed baby cry it out.

Why the hypocrisy?

Because lactivism and attachment parenting have little if anything to do with babies and their wellbeing and everything to do with parents and their self-image. A “good mother” supposedly sacrifices her sleep and mental health and is willing to spend every minute of every day soothing an infant in order to avoid crying it out. But a “good mother” also breastfeeds and therefore, any amount of crying it out is acceptable to preserve bragging rights to exclusive breastfeeding.

I really hate to link to the Daily Mail, but I couldn’t let this article pass. According to a spokesman from the National Obesity Forum, babies don’t have a digestive tract so forcing them to eat junk food from birth is making them fat. I think that’s the gist of it-all those dirty diapers come from a non existent digestive system, obviously.

If I remember my high school biology, tapeworms don’t have a digestive system, since that’s where they live and all the work is done for them. My baby was definitely not a tapeworm – way cuter. Plus, do they grow it later or something?

unctuwoman

As a lactation consultant who has worked in many hospitals, I’ve never personally seen an LC tell a mother their baby should cry anything out.

KeeperOfTheBooks

So you routinely recommend pre-lacteal formula feeds?
If not, what do you recommend when a baby is screaming from hunger and will not be comforted, despite mom offering the breast every time baby opens her mouth at all?
Because when I had DD in a would-be BFHI hospital (they were in the approval process), she almost never stopped screaming. She’d latch, suck frantically for a few seconds, then unlatch and resume screaming. After the first day, she’d fight latching at all because she’d figured out that she wasn’t getting anything there. Yet when I agreed, 3 days in, to the (still-BFing-her-18-month-old) pediatrician’s advice to supplement via an SNS after DD lost over 10% of her body weight, the LCs shamed me for doing so. According to them, “all babies cry,” and I should have just “gotten used to it.”

Amazed

I have no doubt that you haven’t heard the words. However, do you claim that you have never heard or uttered the comforting, “She isn’t hungry. Newborns don’t need this much milk. Babies cry a lot, it’s normal, she doesn’t need formula”?

FormerPhysicist

Trump, feminism and contraceptive and abortion rights. Plan B is over the counter, right? How long can it sit? Does it degrade on the shelf? I worry about my children and their friends.

Roadstergal

Mirena lasts for more than a term – everyone should get it while there’s still any insurance for it…

Megan

Paragard would last a full two terms (God forbid).

LaMont

Oh, he gets 2 terms. 100%.

nomofear

I was so sad that i hated Mirena. It’s so perfect if it works for you. And yes, everyone should try it NOW while it’s still covered! You can always remove it if you don’t like it later on

Heidi

I want to get “fixed” i.e. tubal ligation. I’m only 32 with one child, though and I don’t know if I could find a doctor who’d do it. I’ve tried combo and mini pills both and am not willing to do HBC again, but the idea of having a crampier, heavier period with Paraguard isn’t okay with me either. I was slightly open-minded to another child but absolutely not now. I’m already questioning what world I’ve brought my baby into. We might undo this f***ery in four years but I’ll be 36, which is past an age I’m willing to have a baby.

nomofear

Part of me wants to have a litter now, because I’ll probably be able to get them to be good liberals 🙂 but the fear of something going wrong with the pregnancy that will, after Pence’s work, lead to my death, puts a damper on that.

LaMont

An engaged friend of mine has been on the fence about kids – she wants them but respects how difficult parenting is. After the Trump victory she says she is determined to have kids because we can’t give up and cede the world to them.

BeatriceC

If pregnancy didn’t stand a really good chance of killing me (last one nearly did, and add advanced maternal age to that, and well, just not a good idea), I’d be tempted to have five or six more just to create more little liberals. MrC wouldn’t go for that plan though.

LaMont

Gah yet another reason I’d cut off my right arm to live in the Vorkosigan Saga with their uterine replicators. You’d be able to whip up six more little liberals within a year!! 🙂

(Seriously, I’d rather live in Time-of-Isolation Barrayar than Trump’s America.)

Heidi

I’m going to put all my eggs in one basket and hope the kid I got goes on to change the world for the better.

Margo

OT…..but, wow Trump!!!!!!?????? REALLY!!!!!!

momofone

I am asking myself the same thing.

MI Dawn

I’m heartbroken. We’ve made our country a laughing stock for the world. 50% of us voted for an established politician. Maybe not the best person in the world, but one who understands foreign countries. We now have a future Cheeto in Chief who thinks Putin and Kim are good role models.

N

laughing stock for the world… yes and no. The Front National in France and the AfD in Germany seem quite happy. Lets see where we in Europe will get in the coming years… I try to laugh about it to not feel the fear too much… In fact I feel shocked and sad for you, the American People.

Erin

and don’t forget the “fun” which is Brexit.

At this point in time I’m starting to get scared about the future for our children.

N

Yes exactly. I wonder too why in gods name I changed my mind about children. As a teenager I always thought, the world was not good enough to have children. And now that I have 3 children (3!!!) the world is about to change to the bad. Brexit is quit disturbing too. 🙁

Thank you, nomofear, that was an interesting read. In parts, it is like what we learned in history in Lycée: One thing leads to an other. WWII because of the consequences of WWI etc… And How is it, that I who have not studied that much can see, feel this cycling thing, like omg it is happening again, haven’t we learned anything from history? But other people, people in leader positions, or those who want Brexit or Trump, and those who will want the Front National and AfD don’t see it coming??
Why did I want 3 kids? Why???

demodocus

oh, god, the orange one has apparently won

N

Americans, what have you done?? Aaaaaahhhhh…..

Pck

Democracy at work.

Who?

Yup-The Donald is the end game of democracy and the free market.

The true conservatives in my world are appalled, and have realised they need to stop pacifying these pretenders in their garden.

Me, I’m drinking. And I’m not American and don’t live in the US.

demodocus

my repoblican spouse voted for HRC, despite disagreeing with nearly every one of her political policies. He may be a conservative, but he’s a blind feminist who likes my Mexican-born ob as much as i do

KeeperOfTheBooks

One of my favorite bloggers, an *extremely* conservative Catholic mom-of-ten, has come under a huge amount of fire for publically saying she would not vote for Trump and would, in fact, be voting for Hilary despite loathing her utterly. Why? Because the blogger is a self-described single-issue voter on abortion, and Trump’s presidency will result in more abortions likely happening due to cuts in social/educational/et all programs, among other things. Also, she sees Trump as doing nothing but gross harm to the pro-life movement in general, and in all sorts of ways.
While I didn’t agree with her conclusions 100%, I could quite see her point, and was disgusted with a lot of the (sadly, predictable) reactions in her combox.

Gene

She’s not incorrect in some ways. Texas cut funding to planned parenthood because abortion are evil, etc etc. and ended up paying a crapton much in taxes to pay for more poor kids being born.

The abortion rate fluctuates with economy as well as access to care. An IUD and educated populace is WAY WAY cheaper that teen moms.

Roadstergal

Both Colorado and St Louis saw payoffs in the form of fewer unwanted pregnancies and abortions when they provided free birth control.

LaMont

The anti-choice movement, though, doesn’t usually actually want to prevent abortions. They want to remove *choice* from reproduction ground-up. Women should marry young, have lots of sex, get pregnant as often as God ordains it, and stay home to raise the kids, as many as she is blessed with.

Gene

As long as she never needs food stamps or Medicaid. And if her husband dies (or divorces her), she better not need welfare.

Unless she’s Hispanic. Then she’s just a breeder of anchor babies leeching of the system. Regardless of marital status.

Mishimoo

And let her husband manage 100% of the finances, even if she’s better at handling them. She should trust in her foreordained partner.

Verboten

No, the pro-life movement is concerned with the sanctity of life. We don’t believe murdering unborn children is something a civilized society should involve itself with much less openly praise.

Heidi

You can’t be pro-life and be an anti-vaxxer.

Verboten

Let me check the calendar, is it nonsense day? Nope, sure isn’t.

Pray tell, how is trying to defend life inside and outside of the womb anti-life?

You are the person that wants unborn babies to be murdered. You are the person calling thousands of parents liars. You are the person wanting to force people to be injected with unknown contents. You are a fascist, and dare I say it on Disqus? A pig.

Heidi

Lol, verboten. Based on your response, I’m going to say it must be nonsense day in your world.

Verboten

I love how the sociopaths laugh as though it matters. Normal people read these threads, you know, and they can easily tell who is off their rocker.

You are out of your mind.

N

Ok, I’m not normal than. But I knew that for a long time. redrum redrum redrum 🙂

Verboten

Yea, regressive leftists definitely do not count as normal. You want to kill unborn children, save murderers and rapists, believe that healthcare and schooling can actually be free, that the USA is an evil country…what a bunch of idiots.

rosewater1

Aren’t you adorable? You’re just pulling out EVERYTHING in order to get attention, aren’t you? Bless your little heart.

Verboten

Attention? No, I’m here to make you feel terrible for your idiocy.

kilda

yes, we can.

Verboten

No, you can’t.

LaMont

Do you believe in investigating all miscarriages to prove that they were natural and not induced? That’s 20% of pregnancies, way more if you count fertilizations that never implant and miscarriages before the pregnancy is known. How would you propose regulating miscarriage at the hospital or home level, and what punishment should be meted out to women who can’t prove their miscarriages were natural? Do women have to prove, every period, that there was no fertilized egg in there?

Verboten

Your argument is sound, and I agree. You cannot make abortion illegal for the reasons you pointed out, but having society praise abortion is disgusting. It should be treated like heroine addiction, we give you sterile needles so addicts don’t spread AIDS but we certainly don’t condone it as a healthy lifestyle.

LaMont

I appreciate that you are willing to accept the difficult nature of this issue. Respectfully, I don’t see pro-choicers praising abortion, I see people supporting women’s rights to choose abortion, and respecting individual women’s needs and stories. Some women had fetuses with complications incompatible with life, some could absolutely not support those children, some had children already and couldn’t risk her health, some had abusive partners. By and large, women aren’t frivolous or compulsive when choosing abortion, which is why your “heroin addiction” analogy is so hurtful. Pro-choicers want to work to lower the rates of all of the medical and social complications that result in abortion, but keep the door open so women can properly organize their lives. Unlike heroin addiction, abortion is supported as having some benefits to society, yes. That is not equivalent to saying it’s “healthy” or “praised”. It is simply necessary as a choice.

Verboten

Before I begin, to be clear, if the mother’s life is in danger, all bets are off. This includes rape cases as the mother is a likely candidate for suicide. So, I believe that abortion has a time and a place.

That said, poverty is not an excuse to murder your unborn child. Again, the only reason you cannot make it illegal is because it is unenforceable not because it is “ok”. Being poor, retarded, whatever, does not make you any less human. The issue is the value of human life.

People certainly praise abortion. What else could be inferred when one hears “Abortion is a sacred right”? Sacred?! No. Disgusting is the accurate term. An innocent human life is being ended without good reason which is in no way sacred.

LaMont

The *right* is sacred. Sorry if you don’t understand it that way. People say this “sacred” stuff because the right is being *attacked*.

And how would you regulate rape as an “exception” for abortion, exactly? Rape is *very* difficult to legally prove in many cases, and people never believe women anyway. Todd Akin even voiced a widespread opinion that pregnancy from rape isn’t a thing anyway. This is magical thinking, unfortunately.

Ultimately, many people simply do not believe that a pre-viability fetus is a life that you can *require* a woman to support. It is not murder, as pregnancy is a medical condition of a woman, not a different person. That is how we see this. If you want to reduce abortions, calling it disgusting and harassing women making a serious life decision isn’t the way. Look to improved birth control, sex education, and medicine. Simply making women feel worse is counterproductive, and I think you know that.

Verboten

It is not a right and it is completely disgusting to say so. It is murder.

LaMont

Since it cannot be regulated away, it is a right. It is not murder since this is not a person who can live on their own. If you wouldn’t require a person to give blood, share organs, or other bodily requirements to save other people’s lives, it is inconsistent to demand women do this.

I understand not feeling great about abortion. I’m not super in love with it myself. But if it’s not a right (as you say) and can be regulated away, thousands of women will die annually. *That* would be disgusting. We can work on eliminating the things that drive women to abort, but since you appear to have no interest in improving women’s lives, only making them worse, I think I’m out.

Verboten

No, it is unenforceable but that does not make it a right. A right implies something just is occurring and it is not. It is murder, and rights do not allow for murder of innocents.

LaMont

Gah this new thing, fine, I’ll stay in a sec. “Right” just means something is allowed, you are just objectively wrong here with this definition! You have the right to free speech but not every word spoken is gold (see: Donald Trump). You have the right to smoke cigarettes, but that’s hardly great. This is literally what the word means! If you didn’t have the *right*, that would mean you *couldn’t do the thing*. Gahhhhhhh this is such a weird hill to die on!!

Verboten

So, people are capable of murdering thousands of people. Is that their right?

LaMont

You do realize that someone’s ability is not equivalent to someone’s right, right? *This confusion you have is not a thing* – are you trolling me?? This is a very silly question I can hardly – regulars, help me here, is this a Poe?!

To explain as if you were five, since you’re missing definitions as though you were five:
Helping out in your community is your right *and* is recommended. Yay!
You have the *right* to smoke – it’s allowed, etc. It’s not *recommended* but barring certain indoor smoking laws, it is allowed. Not-yay, but okay.
You don’t have the right to steal. It’s illegal. You probably *could* do it, but it is not your *right* because it is not something permitted.
Leaping tall buildings in a single bound is your right, it’s totally allowed, but it probably isn’t actually possible unless you’re Superman. Yay in theory!

Verboten

If killing an innocent human is your idea of “rights”, you clearly have a skewed sense of what is a right. What of the rights of the innocent unborn human? You act like the baby found its way into the mother’s womb in some malicious way…here read this:

I will begin by conceding any instances where the mother’s life is at genuine risk and the unborn child cannot be saved. This applies to cases of rape as it is reasonable that the woman is a likely candidate for suicide. One human life is not intrinsically more important than another.

The reason abortion is immoral is because it is the senseless murder of an innocent human being.

Let me break that statement down by first establishing that the unborn child is alive and human by asking the question: What is the commonality between the blastocyst stage, the embryonic stage, the adolescent stage, and the adult stage?

At each stage it is the same person which is determined by the unique genetic code found in that person from the moment of conception (I will address identical twins with a simple article: https://www.scientificamerican.com……).

At each stage of development, the entity is human.

The unborn child is innocent as it cannot yet commit any crime whatsoever. The child did not choose to exist, a child is the result of decisions made by the other parties involved.

It is murder because the child did not initiate the attack and cannot defend itself.

It is senseless because the mother is killing the child with the help of a medical professional while being praised by society for it. The Hippocratic oath had to be changed to allow doctors to harm life.

Again, the reason abortion is immoral is because it is the senseless murder of an innocent human being.

LaMont

“Praised” is wrong. Women are never praised for exercising their, yes, *rights*. And if you think it’s not a right, you think it can be regulated away, but you admit it’s not possible to do that. This is a nonsense loop.

Again, what are your plans for ACTUALLY LOWERING ABORTION RATES? And why do you completely not care about how unintended pregnancies affect women? Also, “senseless” means “without reason”. If you listened to women and cared about them, you’d fucking listen to them.

People who are dying of treatable but serious disease are still alive and human, but you cannot force other humans to share their body parts to save them. Would you require a national registry of available organs? Why not?

This is so fascinating, it’s like words have lost all meaning with you!!

Verboten

So, let’s go ahead and take score of what you believe:

1) You believe that murdering an innocent human being is the right of a woman.
2) Indeed, anything that cannot be regulated is a right.
3) You think poverty is an excuse to kill an innocent human being.

Pretty much sums up the idiocy of your arguments. Please do let me know which number you disagree with.

Let’s take score of what I believe:

1) All human life is precious.
2) No one has the right to murder an innocent human being.

Pretty simple.

Now, as to limiting the number of abortions, that is pretty simple. Stop praising it and lauding it as a sacred right, social pressure to only have unprotected sex within a marriage, and social pressure for people to take responsibility for their actions.

It is ludicrous the number of people that argue in defense of irresponsibility. It is always people who have no grasp of history, how mankind has developed, and the purpose of having a society in the first place.

LaMont

So you don’t want to educate women on best practices for preventing unwanted pregnancy, you want to simply shame them. Women are willing to DIE to control their reproductive lives, you think a few mean words will stop them? You’re a piece of work. By empowering people with education we ARE endorsing responsibility. Do you even support birth control or do you think women should just spread their legs for their husbands no questions asked? When women use birth control but it fails (so conceiving wasn’t her desire), has she passed your morality test?

And you don’t believe that “no one” has the right to “murder” a pre-viability person, you think the magically-obvious rape victim has the right but not women who have serious nonlethal health risks, the risk of job loss, or discover their child has a defect they are unequipped to support. When you say it’s okay, it’s okay, otherwise no. Got it.

And yes, if you can’t ban something then it is a right. This isn’t about what you SHOULD ban or shouldn’t, just what you CAN ban/regulate. This is literally a definition, not a matter of opinion.

Still waiting on why I shouldn’t have to give you my organs for dying people, btw! I’m sure you’ll get to that question!

Verboten

Women in the west are well aware of contraceptives and what sex is, more than ever, in fact. You remind me of the group that believes rape can be solved by “informing people about it”…*rolls eyes*.

And, you discount the role in society so much that it is laughable. What you have in essence just told me is that you have no idea what planet you are on.

Risk of job loss is a good reason to kill someone? Lmao, you are out of your mind. Killing retards? Heil Hilter!! Murdering the poor? My, my, what a nice fellow you and your kind must be.

The more we talk, the more disgusted I am with you and your position.

As for organs, I am an organ donor, but no one has the right to take something that I own *slaps you in the head*
What the hell is wrong with you? You support murder of unborn children, you think theft is charity…what next? Disband deathrow because hurting peope is bad?!

LaMont

I literally used charity and theft as *opposite* examples, holy shit.

And btw women own their uteruses as much as you own any organs of yours you animal.

Job loss increases that “risk of death” you’re so ready to trot out as the one real reason to abort, so… yes.

And I never said to kill retards, but okay. I respect parental choice to not bring someone into the world they cannot support. You would have them bear the child and then leave it in the system you want to fucking dismantle, rather than exercise their rights. If they can support the child and choose to raise him/her, I respect and support that too.

And comparing a Jew to Hitler, what a good look!!

And comprehensive education is wildly lacking in many parts of our country due to your party’s policies of abstinence-only education and religious imperatives not to use birth control, so awareness isn’t as high as you’d like to think.

And YES WE CAN CHECK PRO-DEATH-ROW PRO-LIFE PERSON BOX OFF THE BINGO CARD EVERYONE! *balloon drop*
Taking a life in cold blood via execution, THAT is horrible. It doesn’t prevent crime, innocent people ARE killed by death row, and it costs more than life in prison. You’re a Poe, aren’t you?

Verboten

Wow, you are a disgusting person. Protect the murderers and rapists, kill the unborn children. F***ing pathetic.

LaMont

Jail murderers and rapists for life = protect them?

What about the chance of innocent people on death row – it’s about 4%. You’re okay with spending millions of dollars for the privilege of killing each of them? Gotcha.

Verboten

Listen, I’m all for a very careful legal system, but there are cases that it is a guarantee that the murderer or rapist did whatever vicious crime that they did. Yea, we should execute those people. They do not belong in our society. I should not have to pay for that person to live. I work for my money, slacker.

I simply cannot believe how stupid the left is. This is why Trump won. People are sick of coddling the idiots on the left.

LaMont

I work and pay a ton in taxes. It is MORE expensive to execute people – if you’re such a tight fist, why pay for them to die?

Verboten

It’s only expensive because of idiots like you.

LaMont

Idiots like me made it so that appeals exist? Damn, I wish I was a Founding Father and builder of our nation. Cool!!

Verboten

There are obvious cases, admissions of guilt even, and idiots like you try to keep these people alive.

LaMont

All confessions are true! No confessions are ever coerced out of people! And again, I wish I worked on the Innocence Project, but sadly I don’t. Donating to them in your name today, though 🙂

Verboten

Just keep proving my points about you, snarky. Don’t forget to donate to Planned Parenthood, especially their abortion division. Gotta make sure you kill those evil babies and save those rapists and murderers.

LaMont

“Innocence” is *literally in the title*. Not sure what else to tell you. They aren’t there to protect the guilty. Already donated to PP but thx. Fetus baby. But then again, definitions are just fanciful constructs to you…

Verboten

No one wants innocent people dead except for you, moron.

N

Ooooh, but if you are a Jew, you must know that all that Hitler stuff was just made up, by conspiracy and so on. You certainly do know how to make tin foil hats to protect you from brainwash, do you?

(Sorry, please don’t be too offended. I find this Verboten person so funny, I can’t but make fun of him. Besides I live on the borders to Germany, a lot of our people where deportet, and my italian granny remembers the hunger they had to suffer when Mussolini took everything the farmers produced…)

LaMont

Oh don’t worry about offense, my very Jewish family goes SO DARK on the Jewish humor sometimes (what we say about the blood libel drop a normal person’s jaw through the floor). This stuff is just so preposterous!

N

I’m married, well pacsed. NO not gay! And still prefered to be pacsed to my parner than married. And we have protected sex, as we don’t want any more children. But, wait:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Verboten

Obviously no one is here defending dead sperm, jackass.

The Bofa on the Sofa

Obviously no one is here defending dead sperm,

Why not? It would be a consequence of the position you espouse.

Oh I know, “but that’s different” special pleading to follow.

And to that, we say, a 6 week old fetus is also different from a baby. Hence, different rules apply.

Verboten

You are still the idiot you were yesterday. I love consistency.

A child has a unique genetic code that will stick with them from conception to death as an adult.

The baby is alive and uniquely human the entire time in the womb.

The Bofa on the Sofa

The baby is alive and uniquely human the entire time in the womb.

Unsupported assertion noted.

Sperm are alive, too.

Verboten

Sperm belong to another human entity.

sdsures

If it can’t survive outside the womb, it’s not a person under the law.

N

Hey, Verboten doesn’t listen to anyone. He reads their comments, than judges them and insults them. If the judgment is done, he stays by it. He can’t change his opinion about anyone he already judged, as he does not listen…

As the snow flies
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto

And his mama cries
‘Cause if there’s one thing that she don’t need
It’s another hungry mouth to feed
In the ghetto

People, don’t you understand
The child needs a helping hand
Or he’ll grow to be an angry young man some day
Take a look at you and me,
Are we too blind to see?
Do we simply turn our heads and look the other way?

Well, the world turns
And a hungry little boy with a runny nose
Plays in the street as the cold wind blows
In the ghetto

And his hunger burns
So he starts to roam the streets at night
And he learns how to steal, and he learns how to fight
In the ghetto

Then one night in desperation
The young man breaks away
He buys a gun,
Steals a car,
Tries to run,
But he don’t get far

And his mama cries
As a crowd gathers ’round an angry young man
Face down on the street with a gun in his hand
In the ghetto

And as her young man dies,
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’,
Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto
…

Verboten

I love how the Chicago ghetto exists because of the regressive left and their only solution is to kill the babies. What a bunch of lunatic monsters.

Box of Salt

” a healthy lifestyle”

Being pregnant is not a healthy lifestyle.

Verboten

You are a joke. Leave.

LaMont

Pregnancy exacerbates pre-existing health problems, can cause fatal complications, and cause enough problems for a woman to lose her job. Explain how THAT doesn’t generate a risk of death for a woman.

Box of Salt

Do you think feeling nauseated all the time is “healthy”? How about vomiting frequently?

Or becoming immune deficient?

Gaining a lot of weight in a short period of time? A constant need to urinate? Slowed intestines, complete with bloating? How about constant heartburn?

Sound healthy to you?

Verboten

Does the miracle of life disgust you?

Says a lot about you when you are disgusted by the continuation of the human species and the wonders of pregnancy and childbirth.

Box of Salt

You didn’t answer my question Verboten.

Verboten

Oh, I guess you cannot infer what my answer was.

Absolutely, pregnancy is healthy.

I want you to think about the color green. Is the color green healthy?

When it is a green avocado, that is a healthy avocado. If you see a green toenail, that is an unhealthy toenail.

If you saw a pregnant woman that was not showing signs of supporting a human life within them, that is an unhealthy pregnant woman.

You probably won’t understand, don’t worry, I won’t be surprised.

Box of Salt

Many of the typical symptoms women experience during pregnancy are considered pathological in absence of the fetus.

We’re lucky the species has survived as long as it has.

Verboten

“We’re lucky the species has survived as long as it has.”

I agree, your kind has been murdering and lying to people for thousands of years.

Box of Salt

Verboten “your kind has been murdering and lying”

What kind is that?

Verboten

I don’t know, you tell me why people have been sacrificing children and lying to people about its benefits for so long.

Box of Salt

“If you saw a pregnant woman that was not showing signs of supporting a
human life within them, that is an unhealthy pregnant woman.”

Oh, about the first four months, then, for most women who aren’t on their 3d, 4th, or 5th gestation (will vary by the mother’s build) automatically unhealthy.

Good to know.

Verboten

You are an idiot. Thanks for letting everyone see that.

Box of Salt

Verboten “When it is a green avocado, that is a healthy avocado. If you see a green toenail, that is an unhealthy toenail.”

Why are you thinking about eating toenails?

Verboten

No, it is something over your head, but healthy is not a matter of what you see, it is a matter of whether it is in a healthy natural state or not.

Who?

I’m all for heroine addiction.

Heroin addiction is bad though.

Verboten

Thanks for your enlightening input.

LaMont

This pun is literally the least crazy thing in this conversation. And it was funny! You’re my new fave 🙂

nomofear

Really, because most of the pro-birthers I know (and there’s a lot of them here in Alabama) want NOTHING to do with that sanctity of life once it’s in the world, breathing on its own. Parents can’t feed, clothe, or house you? Sorry, kid, Jesus stopped caring once you exited the womb. Oddly, my pro-choice friends and I do more to help the poor than the rest of them combined. But go on.

Verboten

So, pro-lifers are against murder and are pro-hard work, but that makes them evil?

So, so happy that Hillary lost. You regressive leftists would have ruined the country and the world.

Sarah

Hilary, a leftist?! Snort.

N

Yes. It seems so. And apparently The Simpsons predicted it in an episode from 2000.

The electoral college at work. The final vote tally isn’t in yet, but last I saw, Clinton was leading the popular vote. I’m not a fan of direct democracy, but the EC system doesn’t work either.

Roadstergal

If she’s leading the popular vote, she’s leading it by the slimmest of margins. The American people wholeheartedly embraced Cheeto Mussolini.

Nick Sanders

~1%

Edit: Which really goes to my point. A difference so small should not lead to such a drastic disparity of electoral votes.

Maud Pie

Ironically, the electoral college was intended to reduce the likelihood of emotion driven mobs electing a demagogue. That sure failed here. The next line of defense against mobocracy is separation of powers. I’m not optimistic. I predict GOP congress persons will be racing to bend over and spread their cheeks for their alpha beast.

LaMont

Made sure we will never have a female president as long as this nation exists. That’s what we have done.

N

Yes, that was probably your only chance for a long time… But instead you choose The Sexist. That shows the position of women in the US… 🙁

Sarah

Well they didn’t, did they? Say whatever else you want about the US electorate a few days a go, but they didn’t vote for Trump. It’s simply a feature of a strange system that occasionally allows the loser of the popular vote to win.

Toni35

We took out the trash.

Same old same old wasn’t acceptable anymore. This wasn’t a victory for Trump so much as an outcry against the political establishment in general. It’s a fucked system. Now there is a slight chance that Washington will get cleaned up. A chance that wouldn’t have existed otherwise.

It has been awesome to watch the smug liberal media shit bricks all night. Apparently they don’t have as much of a handle on the American people as they thought they did.

The deplorables have spoken. We want jobs more than we want free shit.

J.B.

I doubt it, as the Republican party benefits from the current setup/margins.

Nick Sanders

Trump isn’t going to make jobs, he’s going to destroy them. Thanks for getting suckered by his con.

N

Oh yes, there will be free jobs. He will throw out all the non americans, the immigrants… And than you will have a hell lot of jobs that no one will want to do.

(That is what would happen if we would throw out all the foreigners from our small country somewhere here in Europe. The amount of unemployed people would not change that much, but there would be a lot of free jobs, for sure. Like cleaning womens jobs, road and building construction,… )

Toni35

Most of the road and construction workers around here are white.

Empliau

The brilliant Tom Lehrer, on a clueless conservative candidate from the entertainment industry*:

Should Americans pick crops?
George says no,
Cause no one but a Mexican would stoop so low
And after all, even in Egypt the Pharaohs
Had to import Hebrew braceros.

*George Murphy.

Roadstergal

What on earth in his past makes people think he’s going to create jobs in the US?

Azuran

well………Trump is going to need a lot of builders for his wall and a lot of worker for his massive deportation force for illegal mexican. And then someone is going to have to take over all those jobs the illegal immigrants had…

Roadstergal

He’ll have them do the work, then not pay them.

Azuran

With Chinese steel of course.

Mattie

unfortunately when you ‘took out the trash’ you left the door open and let in a venomous snake, that’s now about to attack.

Heidi

So how do you think we are going to accomplish more jobs and “cleaning up” Washington with what we’ve just done? You can enjoy watching the “smug liberal media shit bricks” but that doesn’t actually accomplish anything.

J.B.

Also, how do you feel about medicare and social security? Are you depending on those or are you ok without them?

It remains to be seen who comes out on top in the transition team. Although I strongly disagree with how Guiliani and Christie have conducted themselves I believe they do understand the process of governance. Pence IMO wants to make this country into the Handmaid’s Tale.

ACA is gone. Either it will be written out of existence entirely – which would be disastrous as there are now so many insurance plans based on it – or something will replace it. What then, who writes it, will it function as a suite of requirements? Requirements for maternity coverage and birth control coverage are gone. I had friends who (pre-ACA) got pregnant while working but their employer’s coverage didn’t include maternity.

MI Dawn

I’m really concerned for my daughter who is on ACA coverage. She’s going back to school and if it’s eliminated, she will have NO health insurance. She can’t go on mine because she’s over age (26).

LaMont

Does the school have a program?? I’m back in grad school and it’s a relatively affordable insurance program, thank goodness.

Toni35

I’m okay without SS or Medicare. Being under age 50 means I was told over twenty years ago (while I was in high school) that I would not be able to count on them anyway – they are a ponzu scheme that the boomers will run dry and leave my generation totally fucked. So I planned for that.

As for a return to 1950s manufacturing? No. But we’ve needed an overhaul in infrastructure for over 12 years now. Neither party took care of that. If the new POTUS does, it will mean jobs.

Look, tossing the tea in the harbor wasn’t in anyone’s best interests either. What happened last night was that those that built this country, those that feed this country, those that keep the streets and borders safe, those that keep this place running (the blue collar workers with dirty hands and sore backs) threw a shit covered brick through the dining room window of the IYIs (intellectual yet idiot) who have been telling them what to think, what to wear, what to eat, and who to vote for for two generations all the while patting their heads and telling them “now, now it’s for your own good”. The unwashed masses have had enough of the so-called “elite’s” corruption and bullshit. The one who got the vote was the one who scared the shit out of both sides of the aisle. There is a reason for that. The choice wasn’t between a man and a woman. The choice was between a career politician and an outsider. The forgotten people spoke.

Sarah

Actually the really forgotten people, the very poorest, voted for HC. Poorer whites voted Trump, but not the very poorest generally. It’s just that the ones with the absolute least are disproportionately not white.

And sure, if the new President takes care of an overhaul in infrastructure, that would mean jobs. Why do you think this is going to happen, though?

Gene

Not really. I have a very large family that could kindly be referred to as white trash. My father was the first person to graduate from high school and the only one (barring a rare cousin) with a college degree. Lots of Medicaid, lots of food stamps, lots of social programs. All voted for trump. Because democrats might take away their guns. Seriously.

They are going to be way way worse off in four years.

Roadstergal

I really don’t understand that thinking. Eight years of Obama, and are any of the white militia having any trouble at all getting as many guns as they want?

Sarah

Sure, but that example of poor white people voting for Trump doesn’t mean the very lowest income voters, who are disproportionately non-white, didn’t vote Clinton. They did.

indigosky

How does it look in your ivory tower? You do realize that if you work you are PAYING into SS? It ain’t a fucking handout you imbecile. It’s something you paid into and get back later.

Toni35

Yes I’m pissed off that I have to pay in and I know that I’ll never see a dime of my money come back to me. I was asked if I’m prepared for that. Yes. Yes I am. Because I was warned twenty. years. ago. We were all told the same thing. And I happened to listen to the warning. I don’t know why you didn’t believe them when they told us that social security would be wiped out.

Nick Sanders

Clinton won the popular vote. Only barely, but she still got more votes than Trump. What happened last night was not some glorious revolution of the working man, but a sad travesty perpetuated because where votes are counts more than who those votes are for.

J.B.

I’m not clear what motivation that the Republican congress would have to pass laws reducing their power, nor for Trump to change the tax code’s vast benefits for those like Trump. You are aware that huge infrastructure spending generally means great tax increases and that congress passes laws right?

ladyloki

Fuck you! I am a foster parent. Medicare and Medicaid is what these foster kids are on. So yes, let’s say fuck the 500,000 foster kids who are in the system FOR NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN and screw their medical needs! Who cares, they are mostly Black and Hispanic anyway, and will just end up uneducated criminals, amirite? *sarcasm*

Not sarcasm – you are a self-centered idiot who can’t be bothered to think about anyone but themselves. Screw those people, if you are benefited, that is all that matters, right? Typical Trumpette – all about me.

Heidi

“threw a shit covered brick through the dining room window” – oh how appropriate, it is the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

Maud Pie

OMG.

Maud Pie

The Boston tea party was an interesting incident, but not really constructive. The real work of building a nation was the examination of ideas and how to build a government drawing on ideas and values and experience. The founders were flawed men of varying degrees, and they made serious mistakes and omissions that continue to cause problems to this day. But they worked hard and seriously. The Trump faction, in stark contrast, isn’t trying to work seriously. Trump played to certain demographics’ raw emotions by making extravagant and worthless promises. He’s not a reformer with earnest intentions. His agenda is to smash and destroy–satisfying in the short run but really just making things worse. His followers’ delusion that he’s the bold outsider vindicating the rights of the forgotten plebeians is just sad and pathetic.

MaineJen

Yes. Trump, who has promised yuge tax cuts, is somehow going to magically come up with the money to fix our crumbling infrastructure.

SSI and Medicare aren’t just for retirees; if he takes the money from them, the disabled and wards of the state will suffer.

Funny you should mention Ponzi schemes; later this month our president elect will go on trial for fraud! Remember Trump University?

The shit covered brick went through your window too. You just haven’t found it yet.

Maud Pie

So when the 1950s manufacturing sector doesn’t miraculously pop up, will you realized that you were conned by a huckster? Or will the YUGE entertainment of his freak show and his screwing over your scapegoats be enough to satisfy?

Roadstergal

“Same old same old wasn’t acceptable anymore. This wasn’t a victory for Trump so much as an outcry against the political establishment in general. It’s a fucked system. Now there is a slight chance that Washington will get cleaned up. A chance that wouldn’t have existed otherwise.”

Yes, because all of the evidence – including an actual setting-it-all-out conversation, according to Kasich – is that Trump wants to have the figurehead position and let his second-in-command run the show.

His second-in-command is the VERY establishment, VERY same-old-same-old conservative white evangelical Pence. He sabotaged women’s health care in Indiana, and wants to do the same nationwide. Expect to see the appointment of same-old-same-old white male conservative judges to overturn Roe v Wade and the ACA.

Also, given that Hillz lead the popular vote, Trump only won thanks to the ‘fucked system’ of the Electoral College.

Sarah

How on earth is there a slight chance that Washington will get cleaned up? I mean, vote for who you want, but why would you think Trump being in will have a positive effect on corruption?

indigosky

What delusional world are you living in? Trump has managed to go bankrupt multiple times, had money handed to him to begin his empires and basically hates everyone who isn’t him.

And fuck you that you think liberal = welfare. You know why those people are on welfare? It’s people like Trump you moron. Trump was the one who sent all those jobs overseas. None of his shit is made here.

Platos_Redhaired_Stepchild

Donald trump employs lost of immigrants at his hotels. And all his merch is made in china. What makes you think he’s going to give you a job in future if he doesn’t employ you now?

Cody

I’ve never heard a lactation consultant or an attachment parenting advocate advise that letting a newborn cry it out is acceptable in the way that has been suggested here. I have never gone looking on the Internet for that perspective though. Feeding on demand is always suggested.

Corblimeybot on crappy phone

Well there you go. If you haven’t personally heard of it, it’s not happening, except by outliers that you have to deliberately search for.

Cody

I work with a lot of people in the NCB industry and that was the perspective I was coming from. I have plenty of issues with their opinions, but I have never experienced them taking the stance described in this article. Usually Dr. Amy will back up her opinion with links that prove her point but this didn’t happen here.

Love the snark though, thanks for that. You don’t know anything about me so naturally I must be some idiot writing comments based on two people that I spoke to one time.

lawyer jane

Really? Just look at Kellymom, which ridiculously lowballs the amount of milk a baby will need in a day from pumping, and all the many articles on how daycares supposedly overfeed babies, and the encouragement to “reverse cycle” when you go back to work (ie starve baby during the day).

Cody

Okay but have they said “let a hungry baby cry?” I understand the grand point here, I just don’t think it was well made.

Amazed

Of course they don’t say it. No sane mother would have just let her baby cry (I don’t consider the dumb asshole from CSN0116’s example from the last post a sane mother). Instead, they’re saying to women that their babies are not really hungry. Letting the hungry baby cry is just fine with them, they are just careful to never mention it to the mothers. Unless you want to tell me that those great professionals don’t KNOW the baby is hungry, whereupon I should ask, what the hell do those charlatans get money for if they can’t recognize such a basic need?

The point is very well made. You just insist that we should look at what lactivists say and not what they do. They know a baby is hungry and they ignore it, letting the baby cry with hunger. They’re letting the baby cry it ourt. By definition.

Azuran

But when you don’t have breastmilk, feeding on demand does nothing. Unless they are openly saying to top them off with formula, in which case, they seem to be very good LC

Cody

We know they aren’t saying that and you’re right, feeding on demand won’t be giving babies the calories and fluids necessary in the situation that you’ve referred to. In the early days, many of the babies often will not be wailing and crying, they’ll be sleeping too much and will quiet at the breast anyway. That’s why we depend on weight and other factors like soiled/wet diapers to tell us what’s happening at that point.

Tina

And that’s nice for you and the women you see. But understand that that attitude is rare. When my baby was not getting enough, I was told to not supplement or I’d never build a supply. I snapped back that if they thought feeding exclusive breastmilk was worth staving my baby, they could go f— themselves and gave a bottle. And I am not alone. I belong to a secret FB group called Bullied By Lactivists (invite only to keep out the lactivists who liked to harass moms in the last group) and I can tell you that we have people in all 50 states, multiple countries and all were treated like pond scum about daring to want to feed formula. And many of their babies now have issues from starvation, from autism to cerebral palsy that they thing contributed to the lack of nutrition for those weeks and months.

Cody

I think you misunderstand me. My point is not that LCs are appropriately supportive of proper infant care. We have LCs who are employed by hospitals where I am and most hospitals in my surrounding community are baby friendly. My clients experience a lot of problems with this system.

I just don’t agree with this article as far as cry it out is concerned. This camp is not pro CIO under any circumstance and I have never seen any evidence that they are.

Mrs.Katt the Cat

I took the article to mean that they are generally against CIO on the grounds that it harms babies and yet they allow babies to “CIO” as in hunger cries which is actually very harmful for babies and mothers. And this makes no sense.

Tina

You obviously did not read the article. Yes, they are pro-CIO…if it means not a drop of evil, evil formula ever touches baby lips. I was specifically told to just let my daughter cry and not give her formula, that I should just wait for my supply to kick in. She had been crying hysterically for an hour at that point until I finally got the formula

Now tell me, what else would you call that? Sounds like CIO to me.

Cody

No I read the article. Your point contradicts what I have witnessed and I stand corrected. That’s terrible.

AnnaPDE

And when there’s nothing in the boob to eat — coupled with tongue tie, so baby can’t even get it out? Mine had that, and at 2-3 days, he was banging his head on my chest in frustration as he tried and failed to get any milk out. The LCs literally said that he’s trying to manipulate me and should be distracted with warm swaddles, carrying etc. That’s the classic CiO reasoning and justification.
The poor kid was desperately hungry. It took until the next morning to get a bottle of formula and oh, what a surprise, the “he’s not hungry, just manipulating” baby drank it all and fell asleep.

Fleur

Yup, I was also told that my hungry 2-day old baby was screaming herself into hysterics because she was “manipulative”. Funny, isn’t it? We get told that babies are incapable of manipulative behaviour and that every cry is the sign of a genuine need that MUST be met – unless what your baby wants is more milk than your boobs can provide, in which case she’s a pint-sized Machiavelli who’s just playing power games with you.

MaineJen

There *are* babies who just cry and cry for no discernible reason…I had one. It was exhausting…but the one thing that always calmed him to sleep was breastfeeding. Only when he was eating and then sleeping off his “milk coma” did I get any quiet moments at all.

If your baby is still crying in hunger after you breastfeed him, there’s something not right! Feed that baby, for goodness sake. I feel thankful that my body didn’t have trouble making milk and my kid continued to grow. But if I hadn’t been able to breastfeed, you’d better believe I would have broken out the formula.

N

Yes, my second one cried every evening from 19:00 to 21:00 for almost 6 month. Without any apparent reason. She gained ways enough weight, transformed in a little buddha in one month, only wanted one breast at a time because I had very much milk… so no hunger. Just “colic”. And my FF sister cried non stop for 6 months according to my parents. It was not hunger as they constantly tried to feed her to check if she REALLY was not hungry.

LovleAnjel

Mine cried from sundown until she passed out to sleep for months. It was awful.

The Bofa on the Sofa

Mine cried from sundown until she passed out to sleep for months. It was awful.

I probably would have woken her after the first week or so…

Snarky answer #2: are you sure it was your daughter and not just a bear hibernating for the winter?

Roadstergal

Ba-dum-tss….

CSN0116

I don’t know if it’s so much a CIO as a, “We know your baby is starving and that you can’t meet her needs at the moment. But we’re not going to actually let you know that. It’s not encouraging. And as not to sabotage your breastfeeding you just put that baby to breast every time she’s fidgety. We’re telling you that you’re appropriately ‘reading her hungry cues’ but you’re not actually satisfying her hunger in any meaningful way. (We still can’t tell you that). However, what you _are_ doing is exhausting a baby from suckling and burning more calories than are being replaced so that she settles down and shuts up for another hour or so. You read her shutting up and settling as nutritional fulfilment, however it’s anything but. It’s just exhaustion. But it keeps you breastfeeding another day, another hour, so YAY! If you’re lucky your milk will eventually come in some days later and ‘responding to hungry cues’ will actually happen with nutrition. If you’re like a lot of the unlucky bitches we will welcome you into a demanding, neverending cycle of nurse, pump, SNS supplement, take supplements, wake to feed, pump more, feed more frequently………..”

The things that freaked me out the most about the lactivist screed I got from my OB was the following statements:
1) Breastfeeding may not be every woman’s first choice, but it’s the right choice for every baby!
*Nope! Thanks for the guilt-trip, though!
*Not if the mom isn’t producing enough quantity or quality of milk.
*Not if the mom needs medications that are contraindicated for BF. *Not if the baby has inborn metabolic disorders that breast milk will kill or injure them.
*Not if breastfeeding is intolerable to the mom and causes her to emotionally withdraw from the infant.
*Not if the baby needs predigested formula like my twin did.

2) If you are worried that your child is not receiving enough milk, just remember that breastfeeding works!
*WTF? If your kid is crying during and after feedings, that’s a decent sign that something isn’t working with the feeding method.
*Asking a doctor for a check-up or weigh in before and after feeding is a super-easy way to verify that the kid is getting enough volume – and the doctor can do some tricks to see if the baby is gaining enough weight and/or has feeding issues like reflux.

3) As long as your baby is having wet diapers, they are getting enough milk!
*Shit, there’s a number that goes with that and the number is 6-8.

As FTMs go, I’m old. I’m also persistent and stubborn as hell. Plus, I have a mom and a stable of aunts who breast-fed before the lactivists got a hold of breast-feeding so I have people who I can ask questions about BF who I know will give me good, solid info. IOW, I don’t worry about me and Spawn.

I worry a lot about moms who want what’s best for their kids – and who are too afraid to trust their instincts. Or have never been trained to rock the boat. Or are very young. Or are isolated.

A lactivist screed (or 10) just annoys me – but I worry that some other family will pay a huge price.

Irène Delse

“It’s the right choice for every baby”

Oh, yes? Tell that to my brother, who was born allergic to breastmilk and had to be fed plant-based formula…

Erin

and my MiL who got cows milk as she too was allergic and it was rural Ireland in the 1940s. The only one of her Mother’s 7 kids who was though.

Young CC Prof

My great-grandmother had 4 girls and 2 boys. Both boys were allergic to her milk. The first one was born in the 1920s and died a few months later, malnourished after suffering constant digestive problems. The second one was born after the invention of soy formula, and he lived to a ripe age.

There really are occasional babies allergic to their own mother’s milk.

crazy grad mama

For as much as lactivists emphasize “reading hunger cues,” they’re really bad at doing it—they just assume every cry is a hunger cry. Yes, newborns are hungry a lot, but they do actually have needs other than hunger. Not all of those needs are resolved by shoving a nipple in their mouth!

I will be forever grateful to the baby care book that told me that if baby was crying and it had been less than 90 minutes since the last nursing session, try addressing other needs (temperature, diaper, sleep, etc.) before offering food. Sometimes baby really was hungry again and I’d end up feeding him, but it was a useful rule of thumb.

CSN0116

Never breast fed – fully admit. But it is my understanding that one of the most painful components in the early stages can be attributed to baby suckling too long, too frequently; the nipples don’t get a break. That it causes mom a lot of pain and can quickly lead to blisters, bleeding, anxiety about the next feeding, need for a nipple shield, etc.

What if prelacteal feeding was the norm and moms weren’t encouraged (read forced) to basically let a baby latch on to their sensitive nipples for days and days on end, receiving all that “colostrum” while “encouraging” the milk to come (which will happen anyway).

What if their nipples were left alone or used very little until there was actual substance there and she was actually “nursing”? Could there be less pain? Less blisters and bleeding? Would she not dread the next feeding and want to continue? Could it actually promote higher breastfeeding rates with more longevity?

Roadstergal

That should be studied. Does milk come in faster or slower with prelactal feeding and a break for mom to rest? Does this reduce BF pain? Unfortunately, the BFHI is set up to be ‘make sure baby is attached to nipple until dyed is discharged, then forget about them.’

Amy M

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I’m going to guess that when milk comes in in a given woman is more genetically/physiologically determined than any environmental factor. My own personal experience was that milk came in on Day 4 pp (day after we left the hospital). I don’t know what “normal” is, though 4 days seems common enough from what I’ve seen online. For my tiny twins, 4 days wo/nourishment could have been enough to harm them. Luckily, they were given formula from the get go, and never lost too much weight.

Roadstergal

I would not be surprised if milk comes based on physiology and genetics, regardless of pumping/nursing/nipple chafing schedule, but I just haven’t seen that studied… Mel probably has more comprehensive info on cows than exists for humans!

Young CC Prof

I’m quite sure there’s more data on cows.

One thing we do know is that delayed lactogenesis is more common with first babies than with subsequent babies and especially common with first babies born after 30. I think it’s something like 40% of all first time mothers, and a majority of older first time mothers.

Prior to the invention of effective birth control, giving birth to a first baby after 30 was a pretty rare situation, but it’s now common. These women also tend to be extremely motivated to breastfeed, and almost none of them will be told about the high risk of delayed lactogenesis.

It’s mostly physiology with some genetic controls. The timing of colostrum/milk production in cows is pretty different in humans because calves are born with a non-functioning immune system and body fat of 3-6% depending on the breed.

Because of that, cows start producing colostrum before the calf is born in response to some hormonal changes. (It’s handy for us because seeing a cow “bag up” or have her udder fill from colostrum is a good sign she’s going to deliver in 24 hours to 5 days. Bagged up + loosened ligaments in the hips/tail and vulva means she’ll be going within 24 hours and may be in first-stage labor)

Removal of the placenta seems to trigger the change over to milk production to begin ~24 hours later.

The amount a cow produces is mainly based on 1) genetics, 2) adequate feed/water/rest/low stress – generally clumped as “cow comfort”, 3) time in milk because cows shut down lactation more firmly than humans do, and finally 4) number of milkings a day. Around here, most people do 3-a-day for cows in the high portion of the lactation cycle and 2-a-day for cows reaching the end of the cycle. You can do 4x a day, but in our experience it wasn’t worth the added biological demand on the cows for a marginal (10-15%) more milk.

That’s why the “attach the baby to your breast continuously” idea doesn’t seem to make sense to me. Being able to breastfeed is probably mostly genetically regulated in humans. If a woman doesn’t have enough milk production tissues none of the rest of this stuff is going to make a difference. Stressing a cow out causes her to plummet in milk production – so having raw nipples and a stressed out mom doesn’t sound like a great idea in humans. Having the breasts emptied regularly is a good idea – but draining them all the time doesn’t stimulate milk production more than draining them once every few hours.

Lion

it does. Mothers who give birth to still born babies still have their milk come in somwhwere between day 2 and day 6 regardless. It can cause a lot of stress.

Erin

I don’t know what the norm is but I know the Lactation Consultant (who was wonderful) in NICU was surprised when I pumped on day 3 and got actual proper thick milk.

Dr Kitty

With DD, I pumped for 10 minutes on day 2 PP and got 180mls.
Midwives told me my milk had come in.

As it turned out, no, that was just a warm up, my milk properly came in day 5. I looked like Lolo Ferrari and could express 3oz in less than 5minutes with a crappy hand pump…which was necessary because of the engorgement.

With my son, again I was told day 2 PP that it looked as though my milk was in (although I didn’t pump that time, because d’uh).
Again, no. I was making great volumes of colostrum, but my milk properly came in with a bang day 5. To the point where NONE of my old nursing bras fit and the lady in the bra shop wouldn’t let me leave wearing my old bra!

Even those of us with oversupply can have delayed lactation.

guest

This was me, too. I was all kinds of confused because what I had read about sudden engorgement and white milk hadn’t happened to me a week postpartum…yet I was producing so much of *something* that the NICU told me to stop sending it down. It was just oversupply of colostrum with delayed lactation. The day I woke up actually engorged, I knew.

KeeperOfTheBooks

Anecdotally, the local Latina women consider it the cultural norm to a) breastfeed, but b) have mom sleep/rest a lot for the first couple of weeks thanks to family support, plus c) have said family give baby a bottle or two of formula overnight during the first week so as to let mom get some nice long stretches of sleep. Their breastfeeding rates are much higher than those of their non-Latina counterparts. My theory is that the rest, the culture of “los dos,” the family support, and the relative lack of stress due to all of the above contribute to more moms being able to recover from childbirth faster and breastfeed more easily.

Anna

Funnily the only three days I ever succeeded with breastfeeding were the colostrum days but once the real milk came she just wouldn’t take it. And I didn’t want her to starve not even one day so formula feeding it was and then my milk went away all by itself. I still don’t get it.

Heidi_storage

I read that too and tried to “troubleshoot” my always-crying firstborn, but for the first few weeks it really was always a hunger cry. She was so skinny when she was born that she flipped over at 6 days old, but she put on more than a pound per week her first month.

Moral: Babies! They don’t always do what they’re supposed to do. Oh, well.

Charybdis

Yeah, I can’t get past that idea to “offer the breast for Every. Single. Thing. no matter if the baby just got off your breast 5 minutes ago” mindset. I occasionally hate read a certain lactivist’s page and it is FULL of that kind of advice. Bedshare, dream feed, pop baby on the boob at the slightest whimper, hang out topless and skin to skin with your baby, etc.

Why is it considered okay to offer your baby food in the form of breastmilk straight from the tap for every little whimper, cry, upset, startle, etc.? If the only thing in your arsenal is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

sdsures

What’s “dream feeding”?

Charybdis

That’s where you, whilst bedsharing, don’t wake the baby to latch them on. Baby gets fed while sleeping, you don’t have to get up and the pair of you can sleep all comfy-cosy in an oxytocin haze with baby latched, limpet-like, to your boob all night long!

Mishimoo

Who needs oxygen when breastmilk does it all?!

CSN0116

It’s a good way to kill a baby o_0 :'(

sdsures

Sounds lovely. Not.

CSN0116

Au contraire – in FF world a “dream feed” is purposefully feeding a sleeping baby before you (the parent) goes to bed for the night, in an effort to elongate the baby’s first sleep stretch.

Baby ate at 8 pm and went to bed at 8:30 pm.

But mom hung out and watched some Netflix until 11 pm.

Baby will likely be up in a couple hours to feed but if mom “dream feeds” baby at 11 pm she will stall baby until 3-4-or-5 am, scoring some more sleep for all.

You “dream feed” in the dark, no talking, no diaper changing, and the goal is to keep baby asleep throughout the feed and gently place them back down. Poof, like it never happened.

This FF connoisseur does not endorse “dream feeds” as baby can inadvertently become dependent upon them, even after they’re no longer nutritionally required, thus fucking up your life big time. But TETO 😉

AnnaPDE

That’s how I do it with boobs, too. Possibly waiting/sleeping until the baby stirs, preparing to wake up hungry, and feeding him without any fuss before he can get any more awake. And then put him back into the cot.
The whole setup with sleeping on top of each other in the same bed is totally unnecessary. The point is that kid’s hunger is sorted out while asleep, instead of him going “oh, what a great moment to be awake and play!”

sdsures

Since when can humans swallow liquids in their sleep (other than saliva) and not choke?

unctuwoman

Why don’t you just decide for yourself? You’re not bound by any law to take the suggestions of a lactivist’s blog ffs. Part of the problem in many of these posts is mothers not thinking for themselves. Lactation consultants (not lactivists, whatever they are) are trained in the science and practice of breastfeeding. They offer advice which, like all medical advice, is based on average truths. No medical, nutritional or other sort of advice ever applies to everyone. At some point, mothers have to take responsibility for getting to know their own infants, doing what they think is right and quit being so damn angry at everyone who says something that isn’t for them.

Charybdis

I did decide for myself. I hated, loathed and despised breastfeeding; it made my skin crawl and I started to resent my baby. Switching to formula was a gigantic relief for everybody. All the “help” I got was in the form of “power pump, put baby to breast at every little whimper, keep at it”.

I then learned the difference between DS’s cries, discovered that he was not a comfort sucker, nor did he like to be worn. He slept better in his own crib and white noise and vibrations settled him faster than anything else. I could feed him and so could DH, Grandmas and Grandpas, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends and daycare staff.

When you constantly hear “offer the breast for everything; that will fix the issue the majority of the time” , what are you supposed to think that means? If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

MI Dawn

THIS! Can I upvote this many times?

And I have known many great LCs in my time. None of them went ballistic over formula supplementation when needed. They figured a healthy baby would nurse better.

But the bad ones…(shudder). Our midwifery practice actually had to tell our patients NOT to contact this one LC after a while. She was so “nothing but boob all the time” that we had several babies readmitted for weight loss. We couldn’t tell her how wrong she was because she’d wave her “LC and EBF 5 kids for xX years” in our faces, never mind that every one of us had BF our kids for various lengths of time, were all CNMs who understood the lactation process, and were very pro-breastfeeding. However – we were also very PRO healthy baby.

Steph858

Uh, the “I did it no problems, it’s not THAT hard, you’re just lazy/overreacting etc”. This is the reason why I prefer to see a male doctor when I have period problems. It’s not every lady doctor – it’s not even the majority – but I’ve encountered a few whose attitude is “I’ve been having periods for X Years and although they can be inconvenient they’re not THAT painful/heavy/etc. You’re just being a drama queen.” (They don’t use those exact words, but that’s the general vibe I get.) With a male doctor it’s just matter-of-fact “Try using this new painkiller/birth control.”

Roadstergal

Wow, that’s horrible. I guess I’m lucky – my female OBs have been really, really supportive about my desire not to have periods and cramps.

Brooke

Exclusively breastfed babies are not “crying it out” they are being placed on the breast and fed by colostrum. No one recommends letting a breastfed baby “cry it out” in fact it is recommended parents respond to breastfeeding cues well before the baby is frustrated and crying from hunger, which makes it difficult to breastfeed them. If for whatever reason a mother is unable to produce enough milk LCs recommend using SNS systems with formula or donor milk. That is because nipple stimulation is what triggers the body to start producing milk, so the baby is still fed and the nipples are still being stimulated to produce milk so that eventually the baby can be exclusively breastfed. The problem is not breastfeeding but lack of knowledge and support. I’m sure your response will be something like “why do you care how women feed their babies” and create a second strawman argument that I’m being sexist and judgemental. This blog is getting really repetitive. Hey its election day…you could’ve blogged about the lack of paid maternity leave? Or is that not a divisive enough topic?

NoLongerCrunching

As an LC, I almost never recommend SNSs. For new mothers, they are awkward, complicated, and the babies often end up using them as a straw, defeating the purpose of nipple stimulation. Experience to mothers might be able to use them, but with other kids running around, cleaning the tubes is a bitch. In theory, and for some people, they’re a good idea, but in practice, I find it better to give patients something they will actually do when they are alone with their babies.

N

Me neither. For the same reasons.

Heidi

Good to hear! I had an LC give me one and baby and I both hated that thing. He refused to nurse with it, I was tired of formula leaking out everywhere and the baby screaming his head off because he was hungry. It was not a pleasant situation. I left it at the hospital and was miffed that I most likely got billed for something I actually never agreed to. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the answer for my under-supply anyway since hours of nursing followed by topping up and pumping never made me produce enough.

Maud Pie

I’ve said this on another post, so if you’ve seen it,I apologize for the repetition: I am convinced that the SNS is a torture device to punish mothers and babies who don’t comply with the lactavist mandate.

Young CC Prof

Is there any efficient way to adequately clean an SNS?

Tori

I would squeeze cold water through the tubes, then hot water with dishwashing liquid through, then scrub the unit with a toothbrush, then rinse in cool water, squeeze cool boiled water through, then lastly squeeze air through the tubes. I’d often flick the tubes around like a helicopter to try to get a bit more water out at the end too. I’d sterilise by boiling once a day, although when he was small did go through a stage of sterilising after every feed. Maybe overkill, but I sleep deprived and a bit neurotic and got worried about making him sick from an inadequately cleaned SNS. None of this was particularly efficient but it worked I guess.

Tori

As a first time mum I didn’t mind the SNS in itself, but had a placid baby who was latching well when I was using it. I hated the cleaning, the formula leaking, logistics of using in public, and the feeling of failure when I used it. I’d give it another go I think if a subsequent baby latches but I’ll have multiple units to take the pressure off, a nursing cover to use in public, I won’t expect to breastfeed so won’t feel like a failure I hope, and as soon as it’s causing baby or I stress I’m stopping.

NoLongerCrunching

I tried it with my third baby… If you’d permit me to make a suggestion, I’d recommend considering skipping it. I really think it has no advantage over a bottle unless the mother likes using it. Using a bottle is usually less stressful and thus makes for more enjoyable, bonding, empowering feedings than being constantly reminded that your breasts aren’t working. It’s cute to see the baby eagerly latching and drinking a bottle rather than dealing with the stress of latching onto the tube/nipple assembly. Asan LC, I never expected to enjoy feeding bottles, but I really did.

That said, I support whatever you think is best for your situation.

Tori

Thank you, that’s a really valuable perspective. I gave bottles for half a day or so between speaking to the LC on the phone and then starting the SNS. I actually felt more distressed with bottles in the beginning – not only did I feel like I’d ‘failed’ for having to use formula, but I felt that breastfeeding was about to end with every bottle I gave in those early days. Breastfeeding did stop for us months down the track with a bottle preference hence my consideration for trying a SNS again with a future baby. I suppose I could have coaxed him back but it didn’t seem fair on baby.
When I realised the SNS was no longer temporary I flipped around how I felt about it. He was an excellent feeder up until 3 months, didn’t fuss when there wasn’t much milk, would feed until he got enough or tired out (which is how we didn’t realise he was hungry in the first week or two…). He’d latch easily and stay latched, but I realise not all babies are like this, and most probably aren’t! As he got older and the world of shiny things got more distracting and interesting the SNS became more frustrating due to the latch-unlatch-latch-unlatch, formula going everywhere at the time. But it was mostly the cleaning and getting out the house with it. It’s food for thought- another baby is a bit down the track but want to try to breastfeed although I’m pretty sure it won’t happen exclusively.
‘Feeding goals’ certainly change. Now I just want a fed, content baby, to experience some sort of breastfeeding again for as long as it is working for us, and to fully enjoy my child while I’m doing it. I wish I could go back in time and tell my pregnant self that, and have her listen!

Cartman36

Can I ask you a question? I am legitimately curiosity. We have countless women who comment here about the way that they were treated by LCs that was not supportive. Although it has never happened to me, I am sure we could find several woman on this site who have been told by LCs that they should not provide ANY supplementation and to wait until their milk comes in. Do you believe that women are having these experiences? If so, how do you suggest we fix this. If not, why do you not believe them?

Twyla

I was given one of those but mine was about the “dangers of not breastfeeding.” I refused to sign and tore it into little pieces while looking the nurse straight in the eye. Funny how I had no issues getting formula after that. And I had brought RTF bottled just in case too if they were going to give me crap.My husband was trying not to laugh as he sat in the corner holding our newborn daughter.

Cartman36

I am getting ready to give birth at a BFHI hospital because it’s the only one in my area and I am interested to see if they give me a waiver to sign. I am bringing some RTF bottles as well.

Twyla

Don’t sign it, refuse. Either tear it up or write “refuse to sign a lie” or something. They cannot make you sign it. Pitch a fit, have your partner or another advocate help you. Threaten to sue for withholding formula. Protest the best you can. It’s the only way to get it through their heads that we are not children needing to be told what to do, we are independent adults that do what works for us.

Cartman36

I plan to refuse to sign. I also have an email from the OB director confirming that they would provide formula and the phone number for the hospital board of directors and general counsel if I need it. I don’t anticipate issues. I also decided that I will not be discussing the reasons behind my decision since it only invites discussion or debate but will say something along the lines of I am aware of the purported benefits and I have already discussed my reasons with my physician and pediatrician. Please be respectful of my decision.

momofone

“This blog is getting really repetitive.”

As are your comments. And if the repetition is that annoying to you, I can’t imagine why you continue to read it.

Heidi

Nipple stimulation is what triggers the body to start producing milk *if* there’s no underlying issue like hormonal imbalance, IGT, etc. An SNS has no way to remedy situations like those. You know just like insulin production is triggered in non-diabetic individuals, but some people are *gasp* diabetic!

Heidi

And now I’m imagining a movement to encourage diabetics to eat more sugar because sugar stimulates insulin production!

To the best of my knowledge, nipple stimulation is a red-herring (although an understandable one).

While some rare people can stimulate milk production through nipple stimulation, it’s really, really rare in a woman who has never given birth and still pretty hard in a woman who has given birth previously.

The bigger triggers are 1) removal of the placenta (as shown by milk production in women with severely premature/ill or dead babies) followed by 2) drainage of milk from the breast.

The volume and nutritional quality is mostly mediated by the amount of milk producing tissue in the breast and the ability of said milk tissue to send the right amounts of fat and protein into the milk.

And yup, all of this depends on having the right hormone cascades available at the right time – but if a person’s body isn’t cascading on demand from a “normal” feeding schedule of a newborn, stimulating the nipples 24-7 isn’t going to make the hormones appear.

MaineJen

Way to drop some science! *high five*

The Bofa on the Sofa

In order to get her milk to drop, my wife would look at a picture of the baby. Or hear the baby cry. Certainly didn’t require any nipple stimulation.

Erin

Didn’t even need to be my baby, anyone crying worked for me.

The Bofa on the Sofa

Yep, any baby picture or any baby crying worked.

Erin

It wasn’t just babies as we discovered one night when my husband started talking about how he felt about our son’s arrival and got really upset. Came as a quite a surprise.

Charybdis

Overachiever 😛

BeatriceC

I still, to this day, have a let down reflex that I can feel rather intensely if I hear a newborn screaming, no nipple stimulation required, just hearing a baby cry. I also have a small amount of leakage, even though my youngest is 14 years old. (And yes, I’ve brought this up with my doctor on many occasions throughout the years. Nothing seems to be wrong, so they aren’t worrying about it).

Mishimoo

Same here but only one side now, though my youngest is only 3 so I’m hopeful that the leakage might go away. I’ve always found the let down reflex to be painful, and it’s frustrating that it will probably stick around (I completely stopped lactating after weaning my daughters, but the let down pain still happened when I heard newborn cries)

Clorinda

So you are still basically saying – crying because of hunger because milk isn’t in won’t harm the child.

Actually, the removal of the placenta is what triggers the first stages of milk production in humans.

That’s really basic science and the reason that women who have premature infants who are too unstable or too immature to suckle and women who have stillborn infants end up having colostrum come in soon after birth followed by milk a few days later.

The amount of milk production after the first week or so is controlled by the continual drainage of milk from the breasts. The amount a woman produces is mediated by 1) amount of productive milk tissue available in the breast, 2) feedback that milk is needed through drainage of milk – ideally by draining the breast, but smaller amounts will trigger increased production and 3) maternal intake of water and calories.

Stimulation of the nipples is a side-effect of having continually drained breasts – not a magic bullet. If a woman doesn’t have enough milk producing tissue, if her body doesn’t register that her breasts are being drained and/or a woman is not getting enough calories or liquid, her milk production will crash regardless of how long her nipples are stimulated.

Taysha

Babies are only being fed if there is supply.

Otherwise, they are crying of hunger. Crying is horrible for babies unless it’s caused by hunger, according to lactivists, in which case it builds character? I guess?

It’s election day – according to lactivists, it’s better to force women to go to work with pumps than to fight for paid maternity leave.

You’re out of arguments, Brooke.

Roadstergal

“That is because nipple stimulation is what triggers the body to start producing milk,”

And the ideal C-section rate is 5%, eh?

Care to comment on those citations from yesterday?

CSN0116

Never put one of my five babies to breast, not even for a second. Milk came in religiously on day 3/4 every time and took 2-3 weeks to leave. That was with breast binding, ice, ephedrine, and zero touch, not even water.

Nipple stimulation is needed, my ass. Placental expulsion, genius.

Roadstergal

On the other side of that, I’ve gotten a lot of nipple stimulation throughout my life. I really enjoy it. Never made a drop of milk. :p

CSN0116

Hahaha! Agreed

demodocus

heck, i’ve still got some production and my 5mo is eff

The Bofa on the Sofa

I agree with Brooke. Hungry breastfed babies are not really “Crying it out.” CIO babies will, at least, fall asleep. However, hungry babies won’t get less hungry by crying.

It’s not the same. It’s far worse.

Tori

Except the hungry babies who don’t have the energy to cry and just sleep, which was my newborn. I’m thankful every day I had a LC who told me to start formula over the phone.

guest

Breastfed babies whose mothers are not making enough colostrum or milk are NOT being fed. That’s the problem that you refuse to see.

Lactivists like yourself always assume that any amount of colostrum is sufficient to meet a baby’s needs, but that’s not true. Women don’t all produce the same amount of colostrum. I was an over-producer, even of colostrum, which meant my babies were fine on colostrum. But a woman who does not make enough of it will be starving her baby. Nipple stimulation does signal how much milk is needed but BUT THE MESSAGE ISN’T ALWAYS RECEIVED. Some bodies, like mine, make too much. Others make too little, no matter how much stimulation is applied.

And lots of lactivists *don’t* suggest supplementing with formula with an SNS or any other way. I really think you’re in the wrong place, Brookie. You need to get out and meet some more lactivists.

Maud Pie

What do you tell a mother whose baby fails to latch on, then screams and literally pushes away from the breast? Then tries and fails to latch on again, and screams and pushes again, and repeats the pattern until she falls asleep from exhaustion? And wakes up hungry to repeat this again?

I can tell you what my LC said: That I was worrying too much about nutrition when I should be thinking about how breastfeeding was so much more than just food. And that she had never, ever heard of a problem like mine. (I’ve met other mothers with this problem who were told the same thing by the same LC.). And that it would all be solved by the SNS. Which didn’t help at all.

RNMeg

This happened to me also. My daughter had a difficult delivery; 26 hours of pitocin-augmented labor followed by an emergency c-section, and she was still so stuck she needed to be vacuum-extracted. I think her head and jaw were hurting too much to latch and she ended up with an oral aversion. At any rate, she screamed and pushed away every time I tried to latch her, so I ended up exclusively pumping for 4 awful months. With my son, we fed formula until my milk came in, and..imagine this..I actually was able to breastfeed him! The early introduction of a bottle didn’t break or ruin him. It’s almost like all this lactivist advice is bullshit.

Maud Pie

It’s ironic that if the LC had recommended some form of combo feeding (other than SNS) DD would have gotten a lot more breastmilk overall. That doesn’t bother me–I never completely bought into the vastly superior rhetoric–but it is funny that the LC’s own advice thwarted her own goals. (I don’t think she was a one-bottle-ruins-all believer. At her instructions I was using formula in the SNS. Which, of course, had me wondering why the very procedure she recommended depended on evil formula.)

Bombshellrisa

“Blackadder couldn’t hold his beer,

the art of boozing he’s not mastered.

And I, your merry balladeer

am also well and truly plastered.

Blackadder, Blackadder,

a bit like Robin Hood.

Blackadder, Blackadder,

but nothing like as good.

Blackad-hic, Blackadder,

I thought that he had died.

Blackadder, Blackadder.

Our writers must have lied.

MI Dawn

Hey, Brooke. That’s nonsense. Nipple stimulation is NOT required for women to produce milk. I had tons of women do it after birth who wanted NOTHING to do with breastfeeding and never placed their baby to breast. Their milk came in all the same.

You are being judgemental. Breastfeeding is not the be-all and end-all for every woman who gives birth. Starving exclusively breastfed babies ARE crying it out if mom isn’t creating enough liquid to satisfy their hunger, be it colostrum or breastmilk. If a baby nurses constantly and STILL is hungry, isn’t something wrong here?

Christy

Speaking of lack of knowledge…Why does my support group for parents of stillborn babies have a prominent article on its homepage entitled “How to stop lactation when there is not baby” if nipple stimulation is needed for lactation?

Christy

“That is because nipple stimulation is what triggers the body to start producing milk, so the baby is still fed and the nipples are still being stimulated to produce milk so that eventually the baby can be exclusively breastfed.” ~Brooke

So why does the homepage of my online support group for parents of stillborn babies have an article entitled “How to stop lactation when there is no baby.”?

demodocus

i can’t upvote because such a group has enough people to exist, *hugs* My mother had 3

AnnaPDE

What total and utter BS.
1) It’s not about nipple stimulation. When a woman has a stillbirth, her milk still comes in.
2) My breastfed baby crying desperately and banging his head on my chest when he couldn’t get any milk out of the breast that he was desperately chewing? That’s crying it out. You know what the LCs and midwives said? “He’s trying to manipulate you.” At some point he became too weak to even keep chewing/sucking. The LCs called it “being calmed”, when he hung on the nipple with eyes squeezed shut and looking miserable. And then tried to explain away how he managed to drink the 50ml of formula that I bullied out of them, and suddenly smiled and actually slept.

Tori

A big fat nope here. I used a SNS with formula to supplement, and pumped after feeds too and never made enough milk, maybe a quarter of my baby’s needs at best. Exclusive breastfeeding wasn’t ever on the cards for us. Lies like this cause women who want to breastfeed and physically can’t do it all sorts of distress.

LeighW

If nipple stimulation was what triggered milk production you’d have to milk me like a Holstein.

Woohoo foreplay!

Amy Tuteur, MD

Dr. Amy Tuteur is an obstetrician gynecologist. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1979 and her medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine in 1984. Dr. Tuteur is a former clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. She left the practice of medicine to raise her four children. Her book, Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting (HarperCollins) was published in 2016. She can be reached at DrAmy5 at aol dot com...
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